Congrats Sounders on your Western Conference Championship. Even though their regular season record doesn't show it, I believe the Sounders are a better team than TFC. The depth this team has is unreal. They are on fire.

Learned a long time ago that the MLS season is effin meaningless. Sigi used to have us near the top of the table a lot of the time and when we won the Supporters Shield is was pretty anti climatic. If you can put some run of form together you'll usually make the play offs. The play offs is just about getting hot at the right time.

Some GM's build their teams to dominate the regular season, some are better at 2 legged games in cups.

Where MLS doesn't get much credit for is how daunting the travelling and schedule is, on top of the strict salary cap. European teams bitch all the time about having to travel to the like of eastern Europe and parts of Asia in the champions league and how it makes them tired. The Sounders regularly travel 6 hours to the east coast or the south and east coast times vice versa. All that time changes etc takes its toll. Players have to deal with extreme heat in parts of the south and east coast and sometimes extreme cold/snow in the likes of Toronto at this time of year. It's something I feel is taken for granted when factoring in the difficulty of the league.

Glasgow Seahawk wrote:Where MLS doesn't get much credit for is how daunting the travelling and schedule is, on top of the strict salary cap. European teams bitch all the time about having to travel to the like of eastern Europe and parts of Asia in the champions league and how it makes them tired. The Sounders regularly travel 6 hours to the east coast or the south and east coast times vice versa. All that time changes etc takes its toll. Players have to deal with extreme heat in parts of the south and east coast and sometimes extreme cold/snow in the likes of Toronto at this time of year. It's something I feel is taken for granted when factoring in the difficulty of the league.

I think this is part of the MLS's master plan, to expand to the point of being like the NFL, four divisions instead of two to cut down on the travel. Like the NFL, play your division opponents more often, and rotate the travel to play other clubs outside your division.

Glasgow Seahawk wrote:Where MLS doesn't get much credit for is how daunting the travelling and schedule is, on top of the strict salary cap. European teams bitch all the time about having to travel to the like of eastern Europe and parts of Asia in the champions league and how it makes them tired. The Sounders regularly travel 6 hours to the east coast or the south and east coast times vice versa. All that time changes etc takes its toll. Players have to deal with extreme heat in parts of the south and east coast and sometimes extreme cold/snow in the likes of Toronto at this time of year. It's something I feel is taken for granted when factoring in the difficulty of the league.

I think this is part of the MLS's master plan, to expand to the point of being like the NFL, four divisions instead of two to cut down on the travel. Like the NFL, play your division opponents more often, and rotate the travel to play other clubs outside your division.

Even with that though there's still far more travelling than Europe. The nearest teams to us are Vancouver and Portland which is a still a few hour drive or California teams which is a couple hour flight. European teams usually have teams within the same city or nearby towns. Think Russia would be the closest country who's teams have to travel long distances for league games but even they have umpteen Moscow teams who all play each other. Furthest distance in England is what Newcastle to Southampton currently? 30-45 minute flight.

Glasgow Seahawk wrote:Where MLS doesn't get much credit for is how daunting the travelling and schedule is, on top of the strict salary cap. European teams bitch all the time about having to travel to the like of eastern Europe and parts of Asia in the champions league and how it makes them tired. The Sounders regularly travel 6 hours to the east coast or the south and east coast times vice versa. All that time changes etc takes its toll. Players have to deal with extreme heat in parts of the south and east coast and sometimes extreme cold/snow in the likes of Toronto at this time of year. It's something I feel is taken for granted when factoring in the difficulty of the league.

I think this is part of the MLS's master plan, to expand to the point of being like the NFL, four divisions instead of two to cut down on the travel. Like the NFL, play your division opponents more often, and rotate the travel to play other clubs outside your division.

Even with that though there's still far more travelling than Europe. The nearest teams to us are Vancouver and Portland which is a still a few hour drive or California teams which is a couple hour flight. European teams usually have teams within the same city or nearby towns. Think Russia would be the closest country who's teams have to travel long distances for league games but even they have umpteen Moscow teams who all play each other. Furthest distance in England is what Newcastle to Southampton currently? 30-45 minute flight.

For sure, I'm just saying I think there's a method to the madness of all this expansion, other than lining the pockets of the current owners with expansion fees.

Glasgow Seahawk wrote:Where MLS doesn't get much credit for is how daunting the travelling and schedule is, on top of the strict salary cap. European teams bitch all the time about having to travel to the like of eastern Europe and parts of Asia in the champions league and how it makes them tired. The Sounders regularly travel 6 hours to the east coast or the south and east coast times vice versa. All that time changes etc takes its toll. Players have to deal with extreme heat in parts of the south and east coast and sometimes extreme cold/snow in the likes of Toronto at this time of year. It's something I feel is taken for granted when factoring in the difficulty of the league.

I think this is part of the MLS's master plan, to expand to the point of being like the NFL, four divisions instead of two to cut down on the travel. Like the NFL, play your division opponents more often, and rotate the travel to play other clubs outside your division.

Even with that though there's still far more travelling than Europe. The nearest teams to us are Vancouver and Portland which is a still a few hour drive or California teams which is a couple hour flight. European teams usually have teams within the same city or nearby towns. Think Russia would be the closest country who's teams have to travel long distances for league games but even they have umpteen Moscow teams who all play each other. Furthest distance in England is what Newcastle to Southampton currently? 30-45 minute flight.

For sure, I'm just saying I think there's a method to the madness of all this expansion, other than lining the pockets of the current owners with expansion fees.

I think you give MLS too much credit in forward planning and not being greedy but I can see them use that as the excuse for expanding more rather than cash grab. Still would prefer if they sorted New England's and NYCFC's stadium situations out before more expansion. They seem to be strict with new teams joining (other than NYCFC) but ignore those 2 teams. I hope Detroit don't get a team using Ford Field. At least Seattle and Atlanta's stadiums were designed with the sport in mind, mostly fill their stadiums and can tarp off sections that doesn't make it super obvious unlike New England.

I think she was just clarifying the difference between the two, since a red applies directly to the player's next game. Even though Houston's season is done, Martinez will still have to sit out the first game of the 2018 season whereas we won't have to worry about Nouhou's or Jones' yellows from last night carrying into the final.

I'm excited as hell for this weekend. Of all the teams though I don't want to lose to its Toronto. Mostly because of that stupid trophy case they made for the MLS Cup that has been sitting empty for years but also because there fans are whiners about last season and us parking the bus.

Did we actually "officially" park the bus last year? I don't really remember it that way, but I was, er, drinking at the time. I certainly don't remember us bombing forward on a maniacal goal-hunt, but I don't think we were playing for the 0-0 tie until extras at the earliest.

For me, losing to Portland would have been much worse. While I respect that for the most part, the Timbers aren't an MLS chop 'n flop outfit, Caleb Porter is about as pleasant as a dime-sized hemorrhoid.

Most point to no shots at goal but honestly we did what we had to do to win. If the shoe was on the other foot Toronto fans wouldn't be saying crap. I hope to god its not pens on Saturday, don't think my nerves could take it.

It's MLS cup day....Go Sounders! Schmetzer has a tough decision regarding Nouhou and Rodriguez. I hope he can find a way to play both. Both deserve to play in this one as they have had tremendous impact for the team to get to this spot.

Really bad call. Not only was he off when the ball was played but he cane back from a deep offside position to get where he was.

Toronto played real well though. Was disappointed in Seattle’s transition attack, considering they seemed set up to defend deep. Decent game plan considering no Alonso and given Toronto was always going to come out strong, but Seattle never broke from their deep positions

Yeah I have no problem with Toronto winning because it looked like the Sounders completely forgot how to play and were getting worked...I think it was 20:5 shots on goal when I turned it off. But if that goal was reviewed properly, the game probably goes into OT at least and then it's anyone's match.

Sounders really picked the worst possible day to have their worst game since Leerdam's arrival. Did anybody on the team have a decent game other than Frei? Torres, maybe.

The reffing was definitely one-sided throughout, but not out of line with what you would expect in MLS. About half of home field advantage comes from favorable reffing, after all. So many wooden touches, weird passes and unforced errors make it hard for me to focus in on the reffing much, though, even with an offside goal.

Nico played what was surely his worst match as a Sounder, Victor was invisible and JJ's out the door to Germany. Sucks.